There's a problem with your browser or settings.

Your browser or your browser's settings are not supported. To get the best experience possible, please download a compatible browser. If you know your browser is up to date, you should check to ensure that
javascript is enabled.

Browse Archive

Using NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), scientists have devised the best model yet for the appearance of a vast ribbon of neutral atoms that curls through the boundaries of Earth's solar system.

On April 5, 2010, the sun spewed a two million-mile-per-hour stream of charged particles toward Earth; two NASA Heliophysics System Observatory Missions observed the storm from complementary viewpoints.

NASA's IBEX spacecraft, designed to image the invisible interactions occurring at the edge of the solar system, captured images of magnetospheric structures and a dynamic event occurring in the magnetosphere as the spacecraft observed from near lunar distance.

When Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) was launched on October 19, 2008, space physicists held their collective breath for never-before-seen views of a collision zone far beyond the planets. Now scientists have finished assembling a second complete sweep around the sky, and IBEX has again delivered an unexpected result: the map has changed significantly.

Last year, when NASA's IBEX spacecraft discovered a giant ribbon at the edge of the solar system, researchers were mystified. They called it a "shocking result" and puzzled over its origin. Now the mystery may have been solved.

For the first time, space physicists are building a comprehensive picture of the interactions taking place in the outer solar system—called the interstellar boundary—using particles detected by NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX).